Kaulbach's Modern World

I practiced the following prescribed activity in order to put myself at the frustrational level of a student who is experiencing difficulties with reading, comprehension, vocabulary etc. I found it in Bringing Words to Life:  Robust Vocabulary  Instruction (Isabel L. Beck PhD) She recommends this practice:  Select from an excerpt from a magazine, 10 target words. Block out target words, ask adults to figure out what the missing words are.  I tried this on my own using  a BBC article on government sequester.  It was next to impossible to know what words were missing.  I tried again, hoping to share this with my colleagues in an upcoming meeting.  In this reading there are no directives that help students understand the context of the word in relation to the context of the sentence. No appositives to direct students toward greater meaning of the term.  I wonder if teachers, put on the spot could define all the terms highlighted in the ex...

Returning from our winter break, I have been thinking off and on about how I would reignite or engage my students.  Research into deliberate literacy practices has made it very clear to me that I need to spend class time reviewing, modeling rethinking and providing comprehensive uses of vocabulary terms in difference settings. Before break, students had learned two concepts- Blitzkrieg and appeasement.  Blitzkrieg was easily recalled.  I didn't do this but I could have had them share outloud food items that were blitzed over the weekend. Or I could have read about another battle of WWII and asked them if a blitz strategy was used or not. I could have asked them to explain why or why not.  Instead I skipped ahead to the tougher term: appeasement. (I'm going to remind myself to use blitz in this fashion in our Cold War unit.)  In my literacy readings based on: Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2002).  Bringing words to life: robust vocabulary i...

As of late it seems that profanity is used excessively, without reservation. Students swear so comfortably that it often peppers classroom responses. Maybe I have become old fashioned but the argument that the "f" word is arguably a reasonable noun, verb, an adverb and an adjective has set me and my colleagues on edge. We devoted a full faculty meeting to this issue and I am now a member of the potty mouth committee. Yes, teachers form committees that become fodder for sitcoms. So what. Our mantra, borrowed from Maggie Smith's Downton Abbey character reminds us that "Vulgarity is no substitute for wit". Yet conversing about language and etiquette made me realize that devoting time to the use of polite language could indeed be cause for some fun classroom banter and real learning. Students seem to love studies in persuasion. In preparation for the atomic bomb debate I found a graphic organizer (readwritethink.org) and modeled a persuasive argument for curbin...

Finishing my Masters in Literacy means organizing and reorganizing my portfolio of competencies and taking one last class on reading disabilities. Instead of writing formal papers I am using my weekly conferences and readings provided by a local expert to reshape my classroom instruction. This week, I brought the focus to US History.  My department is rebuilding it's curricula unit by unit. Instead of one unit on WWII I suggested two units.  I think an overview of global engagement is one approach followed by a unit on North American values and identities shaped by war. I am using the theme of story sharing to help students become engaged.  Storycorps became a place to start, followed by interviews and podcasts found on NPR.  I had read about the need for students who struggle with reading to gain confidence for inquiry by engaging in a culture of a particular study.  Too many of my students are too young to have living relatives connected directly to World W...

see published article at Educator's Room.  Normally March 2nd would pass without notice but this year I am embracing the 109th birthday celebration of Dr. Seuss in my high school classroom. Seuss is ageless and timeless. Many elementary school teachers and children's librarians have embraced Read Across America's promotion of "grab your hat and read with the cat"  but high schools tend to lose the connections to childhood things as we focus intently on preparing students for impending adulthood, college or career applications and many meaningful assessments. In our busy efforts to implement more literacy in 6 or 8 course specific areas of content each day teachers hope students will learn more. In the words of Seuss we are thinking "Oh the places they will go" instead of acknowledging how far they have come. High school students need more contact with childhood literacy. In reading Children's Literature Briefly, (Tunnell & Jacobs) I was expos...